He’s a fashion designer with a boutique offering men’s suits and women’s party wear that he’s operated for 10 years. He also owns a bridal shop, L’Altelier, next door that he opened in June.

Nguyen’s gowns are bold and colorful, his suits trim and sleek, and his bridal wear looks like something out of a French fashion magazine. In fact, several of his most over-the-top gowns with layers of lace and sequins were shown in Paris earlier this year.

His growing fashion empire is located inconspicuously in a strip center just south of Beltway 8, bustling with a variety of Vietnamese businesses. On Thursday, Nguyen unveils his new bridal collection at a fashion show at The Carriage House Weddings.

“I’ve been doing alterations since I was 9,” says the dapper Nguyen in a three-piece suit and sporting a handlebar mustache. “I figured I’d be a tailor. I didn’t know what a fashion designer was. I actually had to look it up. I didn’t know Chanel, Dior or Balenciaga. I didn’t even know what haute couture was.”

He chuckles at the thought and says he’s come a long way.

Nguyen moved with his family from Vietnam to Kentucky when he and his identical twin, David, were barely 4. Like many immigrants, they were looking for a better life in the United States.

“My mom tells me when she was young in Vietnam they had a good life and nice clothes, but after the war, her family struggled to survive,” he said.

After two years in Kentucky, they relocated to Houston, which had a burgeoning Vietnamese population. His parents opened their own business and began a new life.

“Being an immigrant, your childhood isn’t a regular childhood,” Nguyen says. “My parents had an alterations shop that they opened without knowing any English.”

Not knowing English was also tough for Nguyen and his brother, who graduated from Kerr High School. They were teased for their accents, and they struggled to do their homework on their own because their parents could offer no help. Even their teachers did little to assist the young brothers in mastering English, Nguyen says.

He seems almost apologetic about his rich Vietnamese accent today.

As a child growing up in southwest Houston, Nguyen says, he felt most safe in his Vietnamese community surrounded by family and other relatives. He was encouraged to attend college to become a “doctor, lawyer or engineer” because his parents didn’t want to see him struggle.

So Nguyen studied biology at the University of Houston and continued to work in his parents’ alterations business. He had no interest in medicine, so he switched to psychology, then architecture. He finally took some art classes and fell in love with sculpting, but “you can’t make a living at that,” he says.

Nguyen learned about the fashion-design program at Houston Community College and enrolled in history, textile and design classes. He was nurtured by the program’s former chair Kay King, who encouraged him to enter a mohair fashion-design competition. He won first place.

“I really didn’t know I could make a living at being a fashion designer, but Ms. King was the only one who pushed me and saw my talent,” he said.

Though Nguyen dropped out of the program, he secured a loan to open his first store, DNC Design and Tailor, and spent the first two years living at the store because he couldn’t afford to live elsewhere.

“It didn’t look anything like this,” says Nguyen, who settles back into a plush blue sofa inside the store. “The walls were bare white. There was one mannequin and a clothing rack. That’s all I had. It felt like I was digging a deeper hole financially.”

In 2016, Nguyen paid off his business loan and, for the first time, began to see a real profit. He even saved enough money to open the bridal shop next door. He also plans to take his entire family to Vietnam next spring when he shows his collections at Vietnam Fashion Week. It’ll be their first trip back to their native country since they moved to America.

Nguyen now knows Chanel from Balenciaga and Prada from Pucci, but he says his favorite designer is Japan’s Yohji Yamamoto because he integrates the discipline of martial arts into his designs. Nguyen himself has studied Vovinam, a Vietnamese martial art, since age 12.

Last year, his mother, Le Nguyen, closed the family alteration shop and now works in Nguyen’s shop full time. His brother is a filmmaker with his own video-production company.

Nguyen hopes to eventually get into accessories and open a fabric store and manufacturing factory. He says he’ll continue to do alterations, which he refers to as “fixing clothes.”

“I have no problem doing a $10 hem because the clients who come for alternations may eventually buy a gown or two,” he said. “They’ll see something and want me to make it for them. ”

The Houston native covers fashion, beauty and fitness, as well as other lifestyle topics. Joy has interviewed countless fashion designers and celebrities, including Houston's own Beyonce, the late Oscar de la Renta, Tory Burch and more. She also writes regularly about children's books and is the author of "Ava and the Prince: The Adventures of Two Rescue Pups" (October 2018, LongTale).

A former competitive ice skater and professional coach, Joy started #YearOfJoy Project to spread joy to area children. She has reached nearly 500 children with her holiday skating party at the ICE at Discovery Green and other events. In 2017, Joy was honored with the Houston Humanitarian award for her community involvement.